Kanye West Vs. J. Cole Showdown! Who Will Be The King Of June 18?

Tomorrow (June 18) marks the biggest hip-hop release date of the year to date, with Kanye West’s Yeezus, J. Cole’s Born Sinner, Mac Miller’s Watching Movies WIth The Sound Off, and Statik Selektah’s Extended Play all getting a ton of buzz, setting up a sales showdown that should rival any that have battled in the past half-decade. The buildup to the date has been a long time in the making, with Statik announcing his release date back in March, and J. Cole unveiling in early April that his sophomore album would drop June 25th. Mac Miller tweeted his June 18th date on May 2nd, which doubled as the same day that Kanye West cryptically tweeted “JUNE EIGHTEEN.”

What followed was eerily similar to an event that consumed the hip-hop world nearly six years ago—J. Cole, feeling the pressure of an impending Kanye-inspired cultural event, moved his release date up a week to directly compete with Yeezus. It was a move that Kanye had used in 2007, bumping up the date of his third album, Graduation, to September 11th in order to go head-to-head with the then-reigning king of New York 50 Cent’s third offering, Curtis. It was a showdown that sparked commentary and (seemingly) light-hearted smack talk from both sides, even earning a face-to-face cover of Rolling Stone and causing 50 to famously say that if Kanye outsold him, he’d retire from rap.

The rest, of course, is history—Kanye outsold 50, eventually winning Best Rap Album at the 2008 Grammys, and 50 didn’t retire, but hasn’t totally been the same since. Now, with both Yeezus and J. Cole’s Born Sinner expecting big debuts—and with both having already leaked to the public—we take a look at both competitions, determine whether or not Born Sinner can emulate Kanye and pull the upset on Yeezus, and decide once and for all: who will be the King of June 18?—Dan Rys (@danrys) & Eric Diep (@E_Diep)

Recommended for You

Around the Web

Best of XXL

Fuck kanye and his hore wife cant make a hore a house wife bozo..aint coppin west just cause the name…..

DJ E’z Back

Kanye’s album is actually HORRIBLE. Whereas J. Cole’s is really good. I’d recommend people listen to tracks off both online FIRST before spending your money.

J.Cole’s biggest fan

J. Cole will kill Kanye’s album

JWILL

Kanye’s Album will outsell J.Cole. I listened to both albums and honestly J.Cole’s album just doesn’t do it for me. The beats are plain and boring. His best and only single to me is “Power Trip” every other track he has just doesn’t deliever. His Freshman debut was better, in my opinion. Kanye West continues to push boundaries musically. “New Slaves”, “Bound 2″ are two tracks that single handily beat J.Cole’s album. Then there is “Send it Up” which is another stand out track. “Guilt Trip” is another banger on the YEEZUS album.

@YANKEE__MATT

Face it, this is the kind of competition J. Cole needs. I hope he wins

CarolinaFiend

Kanye let me down. I was already going to say Born Sinner is much better than Yeezus without listening to it because i’m a huge cole fan, but it actually is true yeezus sucks. Kanye will probably be selling more than Cole but it’ll because people will buy anything with the name kanye on it smh

Suck

Your opinion is invalid when you revealed the huge bias you have towards cole by saying its better without even listening to yeezus. you’re ignorant.

kadir

Yeezus will have the same reaction to it, as 808s did. It takes a while to understand and not everyone will like it. But there is no denying, it is genius.

Adam Malik

static selektahz is sick too and mac miller, but born sinner is amazing. Yeezus is just ait.